Mutual Morality

What morals should be followed?

I determined in my last post; Moral Mess, that morals seem to be basically rooted from instinctual, neurochemical reinforcement triggers. It also seems that people can have significant variances in their particular instinctual reinforcement, in the degree of positivity or negativity, and even more variances caused by subconscious influence. This, combined with the potential complexity of combination of factors involved in circumstances, within modern day life, makes distinguishing that which is moral, a bit of a mess. So how can a best estimate, be made, of morality?

Consistency of common positive or negative feedback triggers, can be a decent gauge for highest probability. Even though everyone may have variances, there is still a range of consistency. This range of consistent perspectives, can allow for agreements. Agreements of preferable and dis-preferable results of reinforcement triggers, allows for a range of preferable, or not, actions, which cause those results. This is basically the stem concept, of most of any societies’ rules and laws. For eg, freedom is a fairly consistent positive reinforcement trigger. So abducting someone, and keeping them locked in a dungeon, tends to be an agreeable dis-preferable action, which causes neurochemical negative reinforcement on the 1 that was abducted.

Even though morals can seem subjective, within the context of agreement, they can be objective. Groups of people within any society, typically agree upon a set of preferable actions, which would cause consistent results of positive or negative reinforcement. It is basically an agreement of intended goal, to cause the maximum enjoyment of everyone within that group. Anyone that agrees to the set of preferable actions, has an objective outline, for what is “moral” or not. The mutual agreement, is key for objectivity. But, disagreements can make this complex, and a potential mess, yet again.

Individuals will typically, always disagree with certain preferable results, or the method of implementation of rules intended to cause those results. There are some rules set out, with an agreeable intent, but which are disagreeable in the implemented restrictions, intended to cause that result. For eg, I agree with the intent of avoiding drowning, but personally, disagree that a restriction against swimming in public quarries, should be the implementation, to cause that result. I explain more detail on that concept, in a previous post; Reduction by Regulation. For those people that disagree with intended results (or method), guidelines on preferable actions become less distinct, or less clearly distinguishable. The argument might be made, that by living in a society, you are agreeing to the rules. But, someone can disagree with that assumption in itself, or may have few options for living where they would agree.

Beyond disagreeing with details of what is a preferable result of reinforcement triggers; what if someone disagrees with causing positive reinforcement in the 1st place? Perhaps psychopaths and sociopaths could be an example of this. I suppose majority can be the best guideline to follow, when it comes to fundamental morals. If the majority agree that happiness is preferable, then it is more probable that it is a preferable goal. Just like in scientific experiments, if 99.9% result a certain way, it can be assumed that the 0.1% of counter-result, had a minor varying factor influence, which is not applicable to the rest. Perhaps, the minorities’ counter-perspective, that happiness for most, is not preferable, should not be applicable for the rest. If that particular influencing factor, is causing counter-results for the majority, that factor can potentially be altered or removed.

Though it seems there can be many minor variances in results of reinforcement triggers, consistency, probability, and agreeability, seem to allow much more order and less subjectivity, in morals. It seems the best gauge for range of preferable actions, might be Mutual Morality.